Testbattery for the assessment of aquatic toxicity

Abstract A testbattery of biochemical and (sub)cellular assays was used to obtain a ranking and classification of aquatic contaminants. The assessment of model compounds with different modes of action by a series of specific (sub)organismic tests was based on the principle of simulating the possible interactions between the contaminants and respective targets in the organisms. The following endpoints were included in the in-vitro testbattery: cytotoxicity in the neutralred and kenacidblue assay with BF-2 fish fibroblasts, decoupling of isolated mitochondria, inhibition of acetylcholinesterase and reaction with glutathion. The response patterns from the individual tests were integrated to obtain the aquatic toxicity profiles. The results show that thein-vitro tests are less sensitive as compared to traditional organismic tests and the objective to serve as monitors of low-level contaminants is not yet achieved with the in-vitro tests used in this study. On the other hand, the testbattery revealed high specificity to identify mode of action related response profiles and to provide an unambiguous classification of toxicants whose impacts may be due to particular interactions.